Recently, there are expectations and attention on a large-capacity magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) in which a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) element is used. The MTJ element comprises two magnetic layers across an intervening tunnel barrier layer. One of the magnetic layers is a magnetization fixed layer (reference layer) in which the magnetization direction is fixed such that it does not change. The other one is a magnetization free layer (storage layer) in which the magnetization direction is easily reversed.